Facts About Paris Catacombs

Paris is one of the world's most iconic and beautiful cities

It is a favorite tourist destination from around the world. But the romantic City of Lights also hides a dark secret

The city's underground catacombs, which are home to the skeletal remains of more than 6 million people

Not exactly the thing you want to hear before booking your flight. So, today on Weird History, we're exploring the creepy ossuaries beneath Paris and their unconventional history

Now, no reason to get catty. We're just talking catacombs. 200 miles of underground tunnels crammed full of human skeletons

sounds like something out of medieval times. That's the sort of thing you build in an era called the Dark Ages

But in fact, these tunnels were first converted into final resting places

for the city's dead in the late 18th century in an attempt to rid the city of rapidly overflowing cemeteries

Before that, they had served as a network of mines and quarries, built during the Middle

Ages to reach the rich limestone deposits beneath the city. These stones were then used to erect many of Paris' most famous and iconic buildings

Most of the mines were constructed by individuals without any kind of formal training or even

permission, and many were never clearly mapped or identified, which made occasional cave-ins

and collapses an ongoing problem. Due to the stable temperatures and humidity levels underground

from the 17th through the early 20th centuries, the mine shafts also housed several breweries

A number of extensions to the original cave network were even dug specifically for this purpose

allowing brewers to work underground and then easily transport their product to wait for customers above

This was not a one-off concept, but a thriving business. By the late 1800s, underground breweries

in just the 14th arrondissement alone were producing more than 22 million gallons of beer each year. The longest-lasting and most

famous of these brewers were known as Duménire and remained in operation through the 1960s

The tunnels also once housed a number of mushroom farms. A specific type of button mushroom

the champignon de Paris, became specifically associated with the catacombs. The construction

of the Paris Metro in the early 1900s ultimately forced growers to move their operations elsewhere

In the mid-1700s, many of the city's largest grave sites, such as the Holy Innocence Cemetery

along the Rue Saint-Denis, were becoming unsanitary due to the sheer number of corpses

interred there, frequently in mass graves dating back centuries. Heavy rains and basement wall collapses in 1780 made Holy Innocence essentially unusable

not to mention a public health and safety hazard demanding some urgent new solution The underground mines which were already being retrofitted and consolidated in in order to deal with the frequent street and home collapses seemed like the perfect place

to cram all the extra bodies. By 1786, corpses were being exhumed nightly

from cemeteries across the city and moved underground into the catacombs. Each night, covered wagons would remove bodies

from nearby graves and deposit them in a mineshaft leading down into the tunnels

near the Rue de la Tombe-Bissoire. The total process of clearing the city's most overcrowded burial sites and moving bodies

into the catacombs took around 12 years. Even though the term catacombs technically only refers to the part that has all the dead

bodies in it, it's now routinely used to refer to the entire network of mines and tunnels

Though it hadn't been their primary purpose, it wasn't long after the underground

ossuaries were completed that it became clear the public would have some kind of dark interest

in checking out these grim subterranean hiding spots. Among the first ever visitors to the

Paris catacombs was the future King Charles X. Back when he was still known as the Count of

Artois, in 1787, he actually organized a picnic down at the catacombs with some of his courtiers

and friends. By 1809, the catacombs were occasionally opened up for individuals to

explore, but only for important or prominent French citizens, and by appointment. At this

point, they were still just a large, disorganized dumping ground for dead bodies that had been

removed from Paris graveyards. Between 1810 and 1814, French politician and engineer Louis-Étienne

Éricard de Toury decided to do something about it and began arranging the bones into patterns

murals, and collages. He specifically intended to honor the victims of the September massacres

incidents of public violence that occurred during the French Revolution. In all

Thuris' designs incorporated around 1,200 skeletons out of a collection of several million

The list of important historical icons and royals who toured the site included German

statesman Otto von Bismarck, Austria's Emperor Francis I, Sweden's Crown Prince Oscar, and

Napoleon III. It wasn't until 1874 that a relatively small section of the tunnels were

opened to the general public as a museum and tourist attraction. Tourists exploring the

catacombs definitely want to stick with the well-traversed areas and large groups

as it's quite easy to get lost down there. In 1793, a porter from the Val-de-Grasse Hospital

named Philibert Asperot, entered the catacombs via a staircase in the hospital courtyard for

reasons unknown and was never heard from again. His decayed remains were discovered 11 years later

in a quarry gallery very close to an exit. He'd nearly made it. He was interred on the spot where

his body was found with a small tombstone noting the peculiar circumstances of his death That part of the catacombs near the Boulevard Saint isn open to the public anymore Sorry

Many visitors to the catacombs routinely wander down there on their own, as opposed

to with a formal tour group. These renegade individuals, known as cataphiles

access the tunnel via former sewer holes and other secret entrances, and in some cases

have left helpful navigation markers to guide one another around. Some of the tunnels actually have above-ground street names etched into the walls to prevent

cataphiles and explorers from getting too turned around. Trespassers in blocked-off sections of the tunnels risk a $77 fine if they run into one

of the police units that routinely patrol underground. National Geographic UK estimates the community could number in the hundreds of thousands

The relatively open, porous nature of catacomb access has led to a number of unexpected and

surprising discoveries over the years. Several artists, for example, have used the tunnels as particularly dramatic impromptu

galleries for their work. One anonymous street artist, going by the name of No Bad, was profiled by the New York Times

in 2014. He's decorated a number of the walls with paintings that glow in the dark

In 2004, police undergoing training exercises in the catacombs discovered a working movie

theater down there, beneath the city's famed Palais de Chaillot. In addition to a giant cinema screen and projection equipment, the cops found theater seats and a

collection of classic films, not to mention a fully stocked bar and restaurant. Obviously

the theater had working electricity to run the projector, but it also had three active phone lines

Authorities returned to the site a few days later to investigate further, only to find that it had been completely taken apart and removed. The only remaining clue was a

note reading, Do Not Try and Find Us. Not all catacomb-themed events are quite so mysterious

and obscure. The site has also hosted a number of unauthorized parties, raves, and events that

attract widespread attention and numerous attendees, despite being technically illegal. Every Halloween, partygoers descend into the tunnels for a themed event known as

Cat-Alloween. Despite the ongoing popularity of these events, you're never still entirely safe

wandering around unsupervised in a dark network of underground tunnels filled with skeletons

In 2011, three friends got lost in the catacombs while partying and drinking together

and were found only after 48 hours of searches. In 2016, a 45-year-old man suffered a fatal cardiac episode during a catacomb party

After descending a grand staircase into the catacombs themselves, Visitors are first greeted by a small exhibition explaining

their history and instructing anyone tall to watch out for occasional low ceilings This ante room is also filled with directional guides and other instructions that were etched onto the walls for the miners who once worked in the tunnels The next room is known as the Porte corridor and features a number of sculptures

that were originally constructed in secret by a quarry worker named Francois Descure

between 1777 and 1782. Descure would work on the project between shifts at the mine and during lunch breaks

using the same tools he was employing for his mining job and lighting the room with

torches for better visibility. The corridor is named after the Port Mayon fortress

on the Spanish island of Mallorca, which is depicted in one of de Cure's designs

The artist was gravely injured during a cave-in while he was carving out a new stairway

which would have made his artwork more accessible from the street, and he never recovered

After exploring de Cure's gallery, visitors then enter the ossuaries themselves, containing the skeletons of more than 6 million late Parisians

That's nearly three times the current living population of the city of Paris, which tops out at around 2.2 million people. Visitors are greeted by a

plaque that reads, Stop. This is the Empire of Death, but you know, in French. After inspecting

the bones, visitors climb 112 steps to leave the catacombs and return to street level

Naturally, this also involves exiting through a gift shop. During the World War II Nazi occupation of France, the catacombs provided Parisians with a handy

hiding place. Two doctors named Jean Talleyrak and René Soutel began mapping the tunnels in 1938

and handed the work over to French resistance leader Henri Roltenghi for use as storage or

hideouts. The Grand Mosque of Paris also took advantage of its location. Directly above an

entrance into the tunnels to serve as a hiding place for Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi regime

Jews would wait in the catacombs until they could be provided with forged identity papers

en route out of the country. Some historians also have suggested that German occupiers may have also

made use of the catacombs to travel around the city, but without the benefits of a handy map

or a local guide. The tunnels have allowed for covert movement around the city during peacetime

as well. In 2017, thieves burrowed through the wall of one of the tunnels to access a private

wine cellar nearly 65 feet below the streets of Paris. More than 300 bottles of vintage Grand

Cru wines were taken at an estimated value of around 250,000 euros. The future could theoretically

hold even more surprising uses for the tunnel network beneath Paris. One Paris architectural

firm, known as Fieldwork, has started experimenting with the catacombs as a source of geothermal

energy due to their constant warm temperatures. Theoretically, they could be used to help regulate

temperatures throughout the city, naturally keeping homes in the area cool during the summer

and warm in the winter